How important is good offense?

[JerryvonKramer]

One of my favourite workers on the All Japan set has been Yatsu. I've pondered to myself why this is -- why does he stand out from all the Haras and Ishikawas of this world?

 

The only thing I can come up with really is that he has an awesome moveset and his offense always looks cool.

 

It seems to be important for me to like someone that they have a good number of ways to hurt you.

 

This is one of the reasons I could never get into Jake Roberts's work. He's great on the mic and a great character, but I've never seen a Jake match that made me buy him as a good wrestler. (admittedly, I have not yet seen the mid 80s stuff on the MidSouth set that I recall seeing HYPED).

 

Why don't I like Jake? Because he literally only does about 5 moves. Short clothesline, DDT, punches, running kneelift (and not awesome ones like Jumbo, but rubbish-looking ones) and er ... that's about it really isn't it. How can I get into a guy like that?

 

I'm not saying you need 15 suplex variations to be a good worker, I'm just saying you need to have a fair few high impact moves in your locker. DiBiase is a guy I always point to with *just enough* high spots in his arsenal: the suplex, the gutwrench suplex, the belly-to-back, the piledriver, the full powerslam from the ropes, the backbreaker. Then for a grounded opponent, he has the fistdrop plus your standard stomps and elbows and the figure-four as a submission hold. Cobra-clutch as a finisher.

 

That's what? About 6 high spots. About 4-5 different ways of hurting a guy when he's down and a finishing hold.

 

Almost all other things he'll do in any given match are ways of selling, including taking the gutpunch from the missed double-axe handle on the second rope and the kick to the face from the missed backdrop.

 

If a guy has less offensive stuff to do than this I find it more difficult to get into them. Ricky Morton is my foremost example and it's something I've talked about before on here. Ricky Morton is a fantastic rag doll. I mean by any standard he's your 10 out of 10 for taking punishment.

 

But does he have 6 high spots and 4-5 different ways of hurting a guy when he's down?

 

And if the answer is "no", then what is there to get into for Morton as a worker beyond his selling? Just the way he throws a punch? Can you be a great worker based SOLEY on your selling ability?

 

I realise this will be a very unpopular view, but I want to understand what we're looking at exactly when people say Jake Roberts is a great worker, or Ricky Morton is a great worker.

[Loss]

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but why are we challenging every single thing lately?

[JerryvonKramer]

For the record, I'm not playing devil's advocate with these questions or any other questions I ask, I'm genuinely asking them. I don't see myself challenging any status quo, I'm honestly wondering about how you get into people who seem to have fewer than 6 moves.

 

Why would Jake Roberts be considered a better worker than, say, Haku? To be honest, I always preferred watching Haku / Meng to Jake, but to say that out loud seems to be a heresy. Why?

[Matt D]

For the record, I'm not playing devil's advocate with these questions or any other questions I ask, I'm genuinely asking them. I don't see myself challenging any status quo, I'm honestly wondering about how you get into people who seem to have fewer than 6 moves.

 

Why would Jake Roberts be considered a better worker than, say, Haku? To be honest, I always preferred watching Haku / Meng to Jake, but to say that out loud seems to be a heresy. Why?

Where would that be a heresy?

 

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.p...all&st=1860

 

For instance, keep going back pages and see all the FoF polls.

[jdw]

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but why are we challenging every single thing lately?

Isn't it what we've all been doing for the past 15 or so years?

 

John

[Tim Cooke]

Ricky Morton had plenty of standard face spots, specifically double teams. Double hip toss, leap frog combo spots with Gibson, hurricanrana, flying body press (both at ground level and off the top rope).

 

Weaker Morton/RnR Express matches tended to be when they didn't have good heels to stooge for them to open up the match and/or when they would use their early offensive segment laying around in side headlock takeovers/arm drags.

[Loss]

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but why are we challenging every single thing lately?

Isn't it what we've all been doing for the past 15 or so years?

 

John

 

Yes, but not over 3 months.

[Loss]

I don't think a wrestler needs a lot of moves. I think a wrestler needs a few moves that are over. Variety isn't what matters, as much as that the moves are executed well, used consistently (finisher, transition, set up, etc) and get a reaction.

 

It's one piece in a puzzle, just like everything else.

[Loss]

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but why are we challenging every single thing lately?

Isn't it what we've all been doing for the past 15 or so years?

 

John

 

Yes, but not over 3 months.

 

Let me retract that a little, because I think I'm acting like a jerk. I'm not feeling well, so that's part of it. So apologies if I was overly dismissive of the question being raised.

 

I guess my problem with "Is ___ overrated?"/"How important is___?" type questions is that they're too objective, too isolated and it's too compartmentalized a way to discuss the things that are good and bad about wrestling. If we say here that offense is important, yet praise a wrestler later who doesn't have great offense but does a lot of other things well ... I don't know, it feels too boxed in. Wrestlers can be great for many reasons. Some great wrestlers are terrible at very specific things, and there's no precise answer to these questions that are being posed.

 

There is something to be said for looking at the 'whole', and not the sum of the parts. Or at the very least, looking at the sum of the parts, but acknowledging that the 'whole' is generally more important. Wrestling does have intangibles, and we're talking about stuff that, while not art, is closer to art than it is to science. Yet the questions feel framed in a way that seem geared more toward finding a precise answer where none exists.

[Tim Cooke]

Most modern US indy guys have WAY too many moves.

 

Like Loss said, it's very much a matter of fitting into the bigger picture. Lawler worked virtually the entire 12/30/85 Loser Leaves Town match against Dundee selling or firing back with punches. He may have used a pile driver but I'm not certain. And that match tells as good of a story, has heat, bumps, selling, etc. as any match.

[Matt D]

Having a bunch of moves isn't nearly as important as knowing what to do between those moves.

[Tim Cooke]

I certainly favor different moves over others. Swinging neck breaker, backbreaker, tilt-a-whirl slam, flying cross body, old school flying headscissors all win points with me during a match but they don't make or break a match.

[jdw]

Yet the questions feel framed in a way that seem geared more toward finding a precise answer where none exists.

I don't disagree with that, which is one reason I've pretty much ducked the larger/broader questions being asked in them and instead touching on smaller things or examples being offered up.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

I think depth of offense is possibly the LEAST important tool a wrestler can have at their disposal. It is not irrelevant and can obviously add to a match or to a wrestler's standing, but it is not as important as timing, selling, working the crowd, actual delivery of offense (which I think is a separate category) or even bumping in my view.

 

I have never seen a match that sucked because of too many good bumps, or too much good selling. Too much working the crowd can hurt a match, but it rarely will kill it. Too much offense has killed many a match for me (though to be fair this is usually because of how the matches are laid out).

[MJH]

Too much offence doesn't kill a match; too little time between the moves (ie: too little selling) is what kills them. You can *never* have too much offence if you can use it effectively. It keeps things fresh, creative, unpredictable, and interesting.

 

Now, I'm not going to say that offence is the most important factor in a wrestler's talent - the most important thing is that the offence that he/she does have is a) executed well and fits both their character and the match - but if you're trying to say that it's a negligble factor then, I'm sorry, that's just wrong. If you took the offensive abilities out of the All Japan guys then they're not having near the matches they had. Not even close. Kawada and Taue only had 'small movesets' when compared with Misawa and Kobashi; if you compare them to heavyweights (especially heels) in any other company or time-frame, then you realise that they had an awful lot of it.

[jdw]

I think depth of offense is possibly the LEAST important tool a wrestler can have at their disposal. It is not irrelevant and can obviously add to a match or to a wrestler's standing, but it is not as important as timing, selling, working the crowd, actual delivery of offense (which I think is a separate category) or even bumping in my view.

I suspect it's far from the least. Things like being graceful and "athletic" in the ring are lower.

 

Taue was an awkward, non-athletic guy in the ring. But even in his weaker periods, he had a variety of offensive "stuff" he could do to his opponents. Over time, some of it became less over with the fans, even if he was doing it in the exact same fashion that had previously been over with the fans. Folks just found it less interesting relative to other stuff they were watching. In turn, among the things that helped Taue be appreciated by the fans as picking it up were adding the Dynamic Bomb, the Nodowa Off The Apron, highlight the Jumping High Kick more and highlighting the Released German Suplex more.

 

Taue's Jumping High Kick wasn't exactly graceful or athletic. In fact, that added to some of the vibe that it was a dangerous/hurty spot: Taue kind of hurtled himself up and the big boot into someone's skull.

 

Is this only the case of All Japan?

 

I don't think so. Nor just the case of grace and athleticism in the ring. I'm sure we can all think of some athletic looking folks in the ring who couldn't put shit together.

 

Look can be overrated. Buddy Rose had a sloppy chunky body, even before he became noted as a fat slob. Did it matter a great deal? On some level it did mean that he wasn't going to be a Really Huge Star because his look wasn't a perfect one for the top tier nationally. But he did a lot of other things well. I suspect if we watched just a 5 disk Will-style set of his best Portland stuff, we'd find that among the stuff Buddy did well was having a good offense (including things as simple as working holds well to compliment the stories he was telling) that helped offset the initial thought in people's minds:

 

"That slob isn't an athlete in the ring."

 

And instead make you know, this guy may be sloppy, but the fucker can go.

 

Which all goes back to Loss' point: it's not just one thing that make for a good worker, which is what these isolated questions break things down into.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

Too much offence doesn't kill a match; too little time between the moves (ie: too little selling) is what kills them. You can *never* have too much offence if you can use it effectively. It keeps things fresh, creative, unpredictable, and interesting.

 

Now, I'm not going to say that offence is the most important factor in a wrestler's talent - the most important thing is that the offence that he/she does have is a) executed well and fits both their character and the match - but if you're trying to say that it's a negligble factor then, I'm sorry, that's just wrong. If you took the offensive abilities out of the All Japan guys then they're not having near the matches they had. Not even close. Kawada and Taue only had 'small movesets' when compared with Misawa and Kobashi; if you compare them to heavyweights (especially heels) in any other company or time-frame, then you realise that they had an awful lot of it.

This is a fair point, although there is a big difference between no selling an uppercut and no selling multiple versions of powerbombs/ddts/suplexes/et.

 

I made my point poorly as it really comes down to presentation. Having said that I would rather see a match chock full of guys "overselling" punches than a match chock full of guys "underselling" "high end" offense.

[Dylan Waco]

Buddy had good offense. He did not have huge depth to his offense. Those two things are not (necessarily) the same.

[jdw]

I suspect that Buddy actually had good depth of offense for the era. Not saying Backlund/Race/Jumbo level of offense, but probably good heel level offense for the era where a lot of the good offense was working holds and using things that compliment it. Dropping an elbow on an arm that you're working over is in a sense a "move". I'm willing to bet that Buddy wasn't just punches and slapping on an arm bar staring off into space.

 

John

[MJH]

[...] Having said that I would rather see a match chock full of guys "overselling" punches than a match chock full of guys "underselling" "high end" offense.

You and me both, for the record, though I can probably watch less of the former and more of the latter than you could.

[Jingus]

A lot of this stuff depends on a lot of various variables. You've gotta know the territory: an ROH crowd demands a bigger bag of movez than a WWE crowd does. It depends on your gimmick: Jimmy Valiant didn't need as many fancy maneuvers as Daniel Bryan does. It depends on your style of work: a Road Dogg or a Larry Zybyzko don't need a ton of MOVEZ because they fill up time in other crowd-working ways. It depends on the genre of wrestling you inhabit: Dean Malenko needs more moves than Necro Butcher, because technical wrestling is partly showing off all the different shit you can do and hardcore wrestling is more about plunder and punishment. It heavily depends on how much time you're expected to fill: an hour-long match requires more variety of offense to keep the audience from getting bored, while in a three-minute TV match you can get away with literally only having three moves.

 

Also, two different discussions are kinda blurring together here: the number of different moves a guy uses, and how well he executes his moves. Those overlap a bit, but they're separate enough that they shouldn't be conflated together.